The Spirit of Prayer and the Spirit of Love

Law’s great synthesis of the mystical outpourings of Jacob Boehme and more orthodox Christian theology, providing an English spiritual classic. William Law is best remembered today for his Serious Call to a Devout and Holy Life. To those interested in his spirituality, however, other works have greater impact. His great synthesis of the mystical outpourings of Jacob Boehme and more orthodox Christian theology, providing an English spiritual classic. Despite being the son of a grocer, William Law was elected a fellow of Emmanuel College, Cambridge, but lost his fellowship because he could not take the oath of allegiance to George I, and he became a non-Jurer. He became the tutor of the father of the historian Gibbon in 1727, and remained as an honoured friend of the family in their Putney home until 1740. He returned to his birthplace, the village of King’s Cliffe and became the centre of a small spiritual community which included Gibbon’s aunt Hester. Despite holding no official position he was widely regarded in his own time and later as a spiritual guide, and his trilogy The Spirit of Prayer, The Spirit of Love and The Way to Divine Knowledge was the mature outpouring of his theology and religion.